David Letterman apologizes to former Late Night writer Nell Scovell over hostile, sexist atmosphere: "Holy sh*t, this is so disturbing"

Vanity Fair

Ten years ago this week, Scovell wrote a Vanity Fair article detailing life as the only female in Letterman's Late Night boys' club writers' room in 1990 that, due to sexual favoritism, led her to quit after five months. The article was published weeks after Letterman's extortion scandal. To mark the article's anniversary, Scovell -- who also detailed working for Letterman in her 2018 memoir Just the Funny Parts -- recently got Letterman to sit down for a two-hour meeting. But before they met, Scovell insisted he read the article. “You know, the other night I read the piece that you wrote 10 years ago,” he told her. “It took you long enough,” Scovell responded. “And I thought, Holy sh*t, this is so disturbing and, sadly, a perspective that I did not have because the only perspective I had was in here.” Letterman said, gesturing to himself. “I’m sorry I was that way and I was happy to have read the piece because it wasn’t angering. I felt horrible because who wants to be the guy that makes people unhappy to work where they’re working? I don’t want to be that guy. I’m not that guy now. I was that guy then.” As Scovell explains, "Dave credits his wife, two psychiatrists, SSRIs, and not having a nightly talk show with helping him grow emotionally. Sometimes he gives off a born-again vibe, if you replace 'finding Jesus' with 'finding therapy.' (Howard Stern has made a similar conversion.) Several of Dave’s stories have a 'was blind but now can see' quality to them." Letterman also said he's determined that his son Harry, who turns 16 next week, benefits from his awakening. "My son knows about this period of my life. We have conversations about girls and about his mother and how we treat her,” said Letterman. “I don’t think he will make these mistakes, and I’m sorry I did.”